


Ambitions

by songlin



Series: The Passion Connected Series [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Figure Skater John, Figure Skater Sherlock, Gen, Ice Skating, Injury Recovery, Interviews, M/M, Past Drug Use, Pre-Slash, figure skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 09:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13972236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songlin/pseuds/songlin
Summary: "Okay, now fast forward to this past February. What pulled you back into skating?""Sherlock Holmes."An interview prior to John Watson's first competitive season after coming out of retirement.





	Ambitions

**Author's Note:**

> I am speaking this into the universe: I am going to write the full version of the skating fic alluded to in the other skating fic I posted. Do not worry, I am also going to write all the other things I owe people.
> 
> This is a preview both of John Watson's upcoming season and of the full fic. Feel free to read between the lines of some of what he says and draw some conclusions. In fact, definitely do. This will probably not even be in the fic proper, as I don't think John was a sure enough bet coming into the season to get onto Ice Talk, and having John explain to the reader a lot of things that they already knew would suck big time to put into your eye holes.
> 
> This is pretty raw. As always, I welcome comments and constructive criticism, unless it's about how unrealistic it is for John to be able to do a triple axel right off after seven years. I had to take _some_ liberties, guys.

**Jackie** : Hi, this is Jackie Wong with Ice Talk, here with John Watson!

**John** : Hello!

**Jackie** : This podcast wasn’t even around yet the last time you were competing, right? So this is your first time as a guest here.

**John** : I think the last time I was skating, you were still writing for examiner.com.

**Jackie** : Gosh, yeah, and just barely, I think. So, talk to me about your triumphant return to the sport.

**John** : Not sure if it’s all that just yet! Let’s get into the season a little and see.

**Jackie** : Tell me what it was like having to step away, especially right before you had the chance to compete in Vancouver.

**John** : Well, it’s hard. You go into figure skating knowing you’ll be retiring from this thing that makes up your whole world before you’re thirty years old, but you always think it’ll be next season, next season. And honestly, I thought I was coming back up until the moment I knew I wasn’t.

**Jackie** : So what did you do after you knew?

**John** : Deny it, at first! It was oh, well, I’m not going to the Olympics, but I’m seventeen! I’ll be 21 for Sochi, that’s still young, I’ll take the rest of the season off to heal and get back in the game.

**Jackie** : When did you know? What was the chain of events that led up to you announcing you were retiring?

**John** : I was in physical therapy, and doing the work, and nothing was changing. The pain would get to be less and less of a problem, and I’d be like, great, time to get back on the ice, and I’d try a jump and my leg just wouldn’t hold. Finally, one day, I looked at my coach James and said, “I don’t think it’s coming back.” I announced I was retiring the next week.

**Jackie** : Wow, I can’t imagine what that felt like.

**John** : Like cutting out your heart, or retiring from sunlight.

**Jackie** : So tell me what happened next. I know you left L.A. to go back home to Pennsylvania.

**John** : Yeah, I moved back in with my sister, started taking classes to be a physio, and started coaching at the local rink.

**Jackie** : I imagine there were a lot of parents interested in getting the national champion to coach their kid!

**John** : More than I could keep up with at first! But I’m, uh, not a great coach, and I had a lot else going on, so eventually I only had two or three kids. The rink would pay me to do odd jobs—sharpening skates, driving the Zam, working in the shop—mostly out of pity, I think.

**Jackie** : Oh, wow. And were you skating at all?

**John** : Barely. It was hard to stay away, after it had been my whole life, but doing it was hard too, because I wanted to be able to do what I knew I couldn’t.

**Jackie** : Okay, now fast forward to this past February. What pulled you back in?

**John** : Sherlock Holmes.

**Jackie** : Fast answer! Really?

**John** : Absolutely.

**Jackie** : So how’d he find you?

**John** : It’s a funny story, actually. There was this video one of my students posted to Instagram of me doing my old short program—the Cinematic Orchestra one—just skating through, marking the jumps. I did one axel, just a single, which I fell on.

**Jackie** : And Sherlock found it?

**John** : Yeah. He did.

**Jackie** : And he contacted you?

**John** : Oh, more than that. He flew from Denver to Philly, took a two-and-a-half-hour Uber to Catawissa, showed up at the rink while I was resurfacing the ice, and told me I was going to skate for him.

**Jackie** : Oh my God, that’s insane!

**John** : Isn’t it? I thought he was certifiable at first. He kept telling me he could tell from the video alone that I could land my jumps if I stopped skating like I was afraid of them.

**Jackie** : What did you tell him?

**John** : Nothing I can repeat here! But he told me to try the program again and this time, to go for the triple.

**Jackie** : You’re kidding.

**John** : I wish I was.

**Jackie** : And you did it?

**John** : You know what? I did. The axel was the last jumping pass in that program, and for half a second skating into it, I thought, “Are you insane?” But I did it, and I landed it, and my leg held.

**Jackie** : Wow.

**John** : You’re telling me! And that was it. By the end of the week, I was flying to Denver to work with Sherlock and Greg.

**Jackie** : So what had you...what were...meeting Sherlock Holmes, what did you think of him going into that relationship?

**John** : Well, I hadn’t been living under a rock. I’d been keeping up with the competitive world while I was holed up in Pennsylvania, so I’d followed his whole career.

**Jackie** : And you overlapped a year in juniors, right?

**John** : Yeah, my last junior season was his first. I would say I was aware of him then—I’d have to be; we were at a lot of the same events, we both medaled at Junior Nationals, Junior Worlds—but we didn’t interact much. I always got the vibe that he was very focused.

**Jackie** : That’s a good way to describe him, I think.

**John** : The nicest way to describe him! Anyways, his senior debut was the season after the first season I was out. So I’d had time to kind of go cold turkey, recover, and come around to watching him again. It was a fun time listening to everyone wrestling with how to cover an athlete like him, who’s…

**Jackie** : Um, let’s say...temperamental?

**John** : That works! I know there was the competition where he scrapped his step sequence on the fly to do another skater’s, supposedly because the other skater had offended him somehow, and the one where his coach quit between the short and the long.

**Jackie** : Wasn’t that the same competition?

**John** : Oh yeah, it was, wasn’t it? And the other time a coach quit mid-competition, because she said to stick to the triple lutz and Sherlock went out and landed the quad—the first ratified quad, even.

**Jackie** : I heard once that there was a coaches’ conference where someone said, “Raise your hand if you’ve coached Sherlock Holmes,” and half the hands in the room went up.

**John** : Sounds right! You know he did his senior test when his coach was out of town? She wanted him to wait another year and he, uh, disagreed.

**Jackie** : I had heard that, yeah.

**John** : But he was amazing! Just incredible on the ice. And then he qualified for Sochi, and we were all looking forward to a probable gold medal, and then…

**Jackie** : The ban.

**John** : Yeah. I’m—I’m not going to talk too much about that, because that’s a whole ordeal unto itself. I do want to say that I support him, that I don’t believe he was gaining an advantage with drugs. That’s not who he is. I fully believe that he will see justice in time, and I also fully believe that I don’t want to spend my season fielding questions about my coach’s past.

**Jackie** : Absolutely fair. Let’s not talk about that, then. Let’s talk about Sherlock and Greg as coaches. I know Greg Lestrade has an absolutely stellar reputation for turning out really well-rounded skaters, while Sherlock has struggled some to attract students.

**John** : Probably because Sherlock’s a wild ride. You know he choreographed my programs too?

**Jackie** : Oh boy, he’s a busy guy!

**John** : Most definitely. Anyways, he’s really shown me what I’m capable of. I have never in my life skated like I have been the last couple of months. I can’t even compare it to previous experiences, because it’s nothing like I’ve ever been through before. And Sherlock has very high expectations. I wouldn’t say he expects me to skate like he does, but he has that unbelievable edge quality, those incredible, fast spins, those huge jumps, and he does want me to aspire to that.

**Jackie** : Well, you have your own strengths. I think in six seasons of competitions you had maybe two edge calls? Just incredible consistency. And I don’t know how many skaters have as easy a time with the axel as you do.

**John** : See, I’ve been told all that, but I’ve never quite bought into it until this season.

**Jackie** : Would you say that’s more Sherlock’s doing or Greg’s?

**John** : I can’t say for certain. Greg is a very stabilizing influence on our whole dynamic.

**Jackie** : And he teaches great jumping technique.

**John** : Oh for sure.

**Jackie** : So what can we expect to see from you this season? What are your ambitions?

**John** : It’s a cliche to say I want to skate clean, right? Well, I’ve got two programs I’m very proud of, and I’ve got all my jumps back. I’ve been working with Sherlock a lot on artistry.

**Jackie** : I know you have a very solid triple lutz. Might we be seeing a quad?

**John** : We might, Jackie. We just might.

**Jackie** : I’ll look forward to it! Anyways, thank you for your time, John, and we’ll look forward to seeing you in competition again!

**John** : Thanks, Jackie!


End file.
